Cognitive abilities, conditions of learning, and the early development of reading skill (MARY ANN EVANS & THOMAS H. CARR 1985)

Cognitive Abilities, Conditions of Learning, and the Early Development of Reading SkillAuthor(s): Mary Ann Evans and Thomas H. CarrSource: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Spring, 1985), pp. 327-350Published by: International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/748022 .

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Cognitive abilities, conditions of learning, and the early

development of reading skill

MARY ANN EVANS Uni ver' avty o Guelph

THOMAS H. CARR Michigan State University

TWO GROUPS of primary-grade classrooms differing in their instructional approach to beginning reading were compared to assess the relationship between learning activities, cognitive abilities, and reading skill. Students' activities in 20 classrooms were observed, confirming that half of the classrooms followed an individualized language-experience approach and half a decoding-oriented basal reader approach. Year-end testing of the students revealed basic level reading skill to be less universally acquired in the language-experience group, but no difference in information processing and linguistic abilities between the two groups. In addition, while the various cognitive measures generally correlated positively with reading in the decoding-oriented group, significant negative correlations between linguistic ability and reading skill were observed in the language-experience group. It is argued that linguistic ability facilitates beginning reading only after a threshold of print-specific skills is acquired, and that the observed difference between the two groups stemmed primarily from their varying emphasis on systematic instruction, with corrective feedback, of these print-specific skills.

Capacites cognitives, conditions d'acquisition et developpement premier de la competence de lecture

ON A COMPARE deux groupes de classes primaires diff6rant dans leur approche d'instruction face a la lecture de debut afin d'dvaluer le rapport entre les activitds oi l'or, apprend, les capacites cognitives et la competence de lecture. On a observe les activites d'dlves dans 20 salles de classes, confirmant que la moitid des classes suivait une approche de l'experience de la langue individualisde et que l'autre moitid suivait une approche de lecteur de base orientde sur le dechiffrement. Les tests de fin d'annde des eleves ont revele que la competence de lecture de niveau de base etait moins universellement acquise dans le groupe experience de la langue mais qu'il n'y avait aucune diff6rence dans le developpement d'informations et les capacitds linguistiques entre les deux groupes. De plus, tandis que les diverses mesures cognitives correspondaient gendralement de manibre positive avec la lecture dans le groupe orientd sur le dechiffrement, on a observe des corrdlations negatives significatives entre la capacite linguistique et la formation de lecture dans le groupe experience de la langue. On discute le fait que la capacite linguistique facilite la lecture de debut seulement apres avoir franchi un seuil de competences specifiques de mots imprimes, et que la diff6rence observde entre les deux groupes provient essentiellement de leur accent varid sur l'instruction systd- matique, avec un dchange correctif, de ces competences specifiques de mots imprimes.

327



Habilidades cognitivas, condiciones de aprendizaje y el desarrollo a temprana edad de la habilidad de lectura

SE COMPARARON dos grupos de clases de grado primario con diferente metodologia de instrucci6n inicial de lectura, para evaluar la relaci6n entre actividades de aprendizaje, habilidades cognitivas y la habilidad de lectura. Se observaron las actividades de los alumnos en 20 clases, asegurando que la mitad de las clases segufan el metodo de experiencia de lenguaje individualizado y la otra mitad el metodo de enfasis de descifre del texto bMsico. La evalua- ci6n de fin de afio escolar de los alumnos revel6 que la habilidad bMsica de lectura menos universalmente adquirida fue por el grupo de experiencia de lenguaje, pero sin diferencia entre los dos grupos en el proceso de informaci6n y en las destrezas lingiifsticas. Ademas, mientras que las varias medidas cognitivas generalmente mostraban correlaci6n positiva con la lectura en el grupo de enfasis de descifre, se observaron correlaciones negativas signifi- cativas entre habilidad lingiiistica y habilidad de lectura en el grupo de experiencia de lenguaje. Se razona que la habilidad lingiifstica facilita los inicios de lectura s6lo hasta despues de haber adquirido una competencia minima en destrezas relacionadas con la paigina impresa y que la diferencia observada entre los dos grupos fue causada primordialmente por el enfasis variado de instrucci6n sistemritica con comprobaci6n inmediata correctiva de estas destrezas relacionadas con la paigina impresa.

In 1908, Edmund Burke Huey proclaimed that to completely analyze what we do when we read would be the acme of a psychologist's achievement, "for it would be to describe very many of the most intricate workings of the human mind, as well as to unravel the tangled story of the most remarkable specific performance that civilization has learned in all its his- tory" (1908/1962, p. 6). While the title of "most remarkable human performance" might have other competitors, reading certainly involves intricate workings of the mind, and learning to read constitutes an intellectual advance of great significance that is much valued in most soci- eties.

Two very different conceptualizations of the reading process currently guide attempts to plan its instruction. The first conceptualization views reading as a routinized performance in which component information-processing mechanisms perform a closely coordinated sequence of mental operations and transforma- tions on incoming sensory data. The sequence begins with the visual encoding of written material and ends with the extraction and storage in memory of the meaning conveyed by that material. This routinized-performance view of reading tends to emphasize stimulus-driven processing, especially the accurate initial encoding of print (see Bryan & Harter, 1899;

Gleitman & Rozin, 1977; Gough & Cosky, 1977; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Lesgold & Perfetti, 1981; McConkie, 1982; McConkie & Zola, 1981; Perfetti & Lesgold, 1978; Singer, 1982; Stanovich, 1980).

The second conceptualization views read-

ing as an act of language comprehension in which the reader brings his or her language competence and world experience to bear in a largely knowledge-driven interpretation process or "psycholinguistic guessing game" (Good- man, 1967). The text provides cues, sometimes fairly minimal, to the writer's intended meaning, and the reader constructs a plausible interpretation of those cues in order to grasp that meaning (see Bock & Brewer, in press; Erlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982; Goodman, 1967, 1973b, 1981; Iser, 1978; Johnson-Laird, 1980; Krashen 1981; Smith, 1978, 1979). As Kolers (1970) has put it, reading from this perspective is only incidentally visual.

Though the truth almost certainly lies somewhere between these two alternatives (Carr, 1981, 1982, in press), an emphasis on one or the other leads to differential emphases on the components of the reading process. An emphasis on the knowledge-driven interpretation might lead one to believe that the key to efficient and effective reading must lie in maximizing reliance on context in order to min-

328 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY * Spring 1985 XX/3



ótimo resumo de duas abordagens cognitivas do processo de leitura e o posicionamento da AEC sobre essas intrerpretações.

imize the amount of time that is wasted on un- necessarily complete perceptual analysis. If knowledge-driven processes can determine what words or phrases are going to be out there on the page, why bother with redundant perception? An alternate emphasis on stimulus-driven processing might lead one to believe that the key to effective reading lies instead in maximizing the speed and accuracy of perceptual analysis in order to minimize the need for potentially misleading interpretative shortcuts. If perceptual processes can accurately determine what is in fact out there on the page in a highly efficient manner, why bother to guess and run the risk of being wrong?

The preceding discussion of knowledge- driven vs. stimulus-driven processes in word recognition allows the two views of reading to be contrasted on relatively common ground. When one takes account of the wider range of linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge that could be relevant to reading efficiency, the dis- tance between the views grows. Though Smith (1973) has emphasized contextual prediction of words as an important process, other propo- nents of the knowledge-driven approach de-emphasize perceptual aspects of word recognition altogether and concentrate instead on processes at higher levels, including syntactic structure (Cromer, 1970; Ryan, 1981), propositional content (Frederiksen, 1978; Goodman, 1969, 1973a, 1981; Kintsch & Van Dijk, 1978; Kintsch & Vipond, 1979; Meyer, 1975, 1977; Omanson, 1982, 1983), reference (Baker & Stein, 1979; Bransford, Stein, & Vye, 1982; Erlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982), and discourse organization or narrative structure (Baker & Stein, 1979; Brown & Smiley, 1977; Brown, Smiley, Day, Townsend, & Lawton, 1977; Meyer, 1975, 1977; Yekovich & Thorndyke, 1981). Such analyses stress the importance of text-level memory representations and the role of inference in constructing them, leading pro- ponents of the knowledge-driven or language- oriented view to focus on the communalities between spoken and written language rather than the differences between them that are high- lighted in the stimulus-driven or routinized-performance view of reading.

The reading researchers and theorists described so far are not necessarily addressing beginning reading. Nevertheless, the two contrasting conceptualizations have been used to support - sometimes acrimoniously-contrasting approaches to reading instruction in the primary grades (e.g., Goodman, 1973a vs. Gleitman & Rozin, 1973a, 1973b; Goodman, 1981 vs. Stanovich, 1980). The contrast is perhaps most striking between the highly analytic approach in which published materials are usually used and a main goal is to teach generaliz- able word recognition skills, and the more synthetic approach, emphasizing whole word recognition, in which self-composed stories are usually read to maximize the predictability of text and its match with the child's oral language. Such different instructional approaches have generated a significant body of comparative research in the scientific literature (Austin, 1973; Bond & Dykstra, 1967; Chall, 1979, 1983; Harris & Serwer, 1966; Weber, 1981) and nu- merous internal reports within school systems in an attempt to make an empirically based choice between the approaches.

The most common method for making such choices has involved the following steps: (a) Adopt different curriculum packages for a period of time; (b) test the children in each curriculum on a desired criterion performance when that time is up; and (c) choose the curriculum associated with the higher test scores when the outcomes differ, or choose the curriculum more appealing on theoretical, political, or aesthetic grounds in the case of no outcome differences.

This decision algorithm, however, is im- poverished. If the question is which learning conditions best facilitate the acquisition of a practical skill, then one should begin by determining empirically what learning conditions ex- ist and not simply rely on descriptions of materials and intended methods. Once the actual learning conditions are known, one needs to measure more than just criterion task performance in order to evaluate them. A practical cognitive skill such as reading represents the ac- commodation of basic cognitive abilities to the requirements of a particular task. In addition to criterion performance, one should determine

Early development of reading EVANS & CARR 329



the level of relevant basic abilities exhibited by the children learning the skill, and more specifically, just what patterns of interdependency ex- ist among the contributing abilities and the instructed skill.

The last point is particularly important. A wide variety of studies indicate that mainte- nance and further development of new learning depends on how well it is matched to and built upon already existing knowledge and skill (Bransford, 1979; Bransford, Stein, & Vye, 1982; Brown, 1977; Brown & DeLoache, 1978; Gagne, 1970). One might conclude that a given set of learning conditions facilitates a match between existing skill and new learning if two pieces of evidence can be found: first, that the learning conditions produce a generally high level of competence at the criterion task, and second, that the learning conditions result in a sensible pattern of positive correlations among relevant basic abilities and instructed skill. Such evidence would suggest that the learning conditions do facilitate mastery of the task, and do so in accord with each student's intellectual potential. These would seem to be de- sirable characteristics for a curriculum to have, at least until learning conditions can be found that eliminate individual differences by raising all students to ceiling levels of achievement.

In this article we attempt to illustrate the approach to evaluating the instruction of practical skills we have just described by reporting an investigation of two different sets of conditions in which first-grade children were trying to learn how to read. The issues which are addressed involve the nature of the reading process, the evaluation of the instruction of beginning reading, and the achievement of a proper match between the structure of a reading curriculum and the characteristics and needs of the students who are learning to read. We will describe a single study consisting of two phases. Phase 1 entailed the sampling and observation of two contrasting primary-grade curricula, and Phase 2 entailed the assessment of cognitive, social/linguistic, and academic skills associated with them. Through these two phases we attempted specifically to determine whether empirically demonstrated differences in classroom

learning conditions influenced either overall reading progress or the strength and pattern of interrelationships between information processing, language, and reading proficiency.

Phase 1: Selecting Curricula and

Documenting Learning Conditions

Reading does not emerge naturally in the course of development but rather must be instructed. The goal of this instruction is to adapt the basic abilities possessed by the learner to the requirements of the task, the performance of which has not yet been acquired. Following the two caricatures of reading presented above, a curriculum promulgated according to a strict routinized-performance view would be expected to emphasize basic abilities related to perception and memory and possibly to construe motivational factors as depending to a greater degree, at least initially, on teacher dis- pensed feedback and rewards. Reading would be regarded as a skill that must be actively taught and systematically exercised in a carefully orchestrated regimen of training, a skill which only practice makes perfect. In contrast, a curriculum promulgated according to a strict language-oriented view would be expected to emphasize language abilities rather than perception or memory and perhaps to construe motivational factors in terms of self-reward and self-efficacy. Reading would be regarded as a skill that is built on a foundation of spoken language and that should therefore be related as closely as possible to other language activities in which students engage. Drills on the mechanisms of reading would be much less important than establishing for a student that reading, like speaking, is a way to use language to communi- cate a message.

Whether such caricatured curricula are actually found is, of course, an empirical question which must be answered to understand how theory is converted into practice. In addition, the question that is ultimately to be answered is which learning conditions in relation to what basic abilities better facilitate the acquisition of




the desired performance. Thus, as we argued earlier, one should begin a curriculum evaluation by determining empirically what learning conditions have in fact been instituted. Given the vagaries of turning the prescriptions of curriculum packages into classroom activities, fail- ing to do this would be equivalent to analyzing and interpreting the data of an experiment without knowing the procedure by which they were collected. On both empirical and methodologi- cal grounds, the objective documentation of learning conditions stands as a critical component in the evaluation of reading curricula.

Method Classroom sample. Two sets of 10 class-

rooms, characterized by different names (and as will be seen, by different curricula), constituted the sample examined. One group, our example of a knowledge-driven or language-oriented reading curriculum, was drawn from an experiment in a large urban-suburban school district in which a British Infant School model of instruction as described by the Plowden Report (1967) was being implemented. According to the basic principles of the Infant School model, each child is to learn at his or her individual rate in his or her individual style. The curriculum should allow these rates and styles to be realized by providing the maximum opportunity for personal responsibility, self-direction, and freedom to explore in a highly diversified and flexible learning environment. Hence, classroom programs were to be based on "play," a special kind of learning situation in which children are assumed to experiment with new knowledge and skills without the onus of external evaluation, and to strengthen and consolidate cognitive and social competencies in a pressure-free atmo- sphere (see Bruner, 1972; Bruner, Jolly, & Sylva, 1976; Garvey, 1977; Vygotsky, 1967). According to the curriculum guidelines of the experimental project, whenever children were not being directly instructed by the teacher, they were to be engaged in self-selected constructive play activity. In addition, within the framework of individualization, reading instruction was to be based on the child's own language skills and

pattern of language use. Hence the children were to dictate their own reading materials and to construct their own personal banks of sight words drawn from their stories. The general guideline was that 150 sight words should be banked and mastered before a child was to be involved in any group instruction using basal or published materials. These principles and means of realizing them were conveyed to teachers via in-service workshops and individual consultation with project leaders. Through- out the project, the writings of Goodman (1967, 1973b), Smith (1978, 1979) and Stauffer (1970) were frequently cited.

At the time of the study 50 teachers of kin- dergarten to Grade 3 were participating in the project. Their entry had been staggered across 3 school years to allow for maximum supervision. From the classrooms viewed by project leaders as best exemplifying the philosophy, seven Grade 1 and five mixed-grade (1-2) classrooms from a variety of socioeconomic neigh- borhoods were selected.

The second set of classrooms consisted of a matched sample of 10 nonexperimental classrooms. The classrooms were matched according to classroom layout (open-plan vs. self-contained classroom), pupil composition (Grade 1 vs. Grade 1-2), the district of the school, and the socioeconomic status of the school neighborhood according to median in- come as noted in current census data. We emphasize that these classrooms were not systematically or consistently selected to represent a curriculum opposite to the experimental language-oriented model. Before observation of the classrooms began there was no indication of how teachers in the comparison group instructed their classes, except that they were not participants in the British Infant School model. We assumed that their classroom instruction would follow a more traditional format and would turn out to be oriented toward a routinized-performance approach. As will be described below, the data bore out this assumption. In these classrooms, reading was instructed primarily through basal readers and workbooks rather than student-generated stories, phonics drill rather than sight-word bank-




ing, and supervised practice at cloze-type prediction from context, using relatively unfamiliar reading materials.

Data collection. The goal of Phase 1 was to describe student behavior in the two types of classrooms. An observational coding system was designed for detailing (a) the content or skill areas of the activities in which the students engaged, (b) the materials employed in each activity, (c) the people with whom a student inter- acted in carrying out an activity, (d) how involved the student appeared to be in the activity, and (e) whether students participated as part of a group under direct teacher guidance or acted independently. In adopting this procedure, we assumed that what students learn is most directly related to what they do, as has been shown in a number of studies relating instructional time, on-task time, and relative degree of coverage of academic content to achievement (Block & Burns, 1976; Borg, 1979; Fisher, Filby, & Martuza, 1977; Guthrie, Martuza, & Seifert, in press; Harris & Serwer, 1966; Stallings, 1975). We also assumed that what students are actually doing in a classroom is the best description of that classroom's curriculum.

The method of observation used to obtain this information entailed a time-sampling tech- nique whereby an observer, repeatedly and systematically turning attention from one child to another, watched a child's behavior for 10 seconds and recorded it according to a number of descriptive coding categories. The children in each classroom were observed for four half-day periods (two mornings and two afternoons) during November and December. During this time approximately 50 samples of the behavior of each child within each classroom were taken. In order to get a summary description of a classroom, data were collapsed across pupils and across observation sessions. Two basic learning contexts were defined to capture the distinction between formal teacher-supervised instruction and informal student-directed or individualized instruction. These were the categories of teacher-led group work in which the teacher actively directed the activities of at least two pupils, and independent work in which a child

worked independently or in a small group without immediate supervision or else worked sin- gly with the teacher in a tutorial format. Totals for all behavior categories were derived in each of these contexts separately as well as for the two collapsed (i.e., for an average whole day), and corresponding percentages were calculated to yield profiles of the relative amounts of various activities and behaviors. Analyses of variance on these dependent measures were used to identify similarities and differences between the language-oriented and routinized-performance curricula. Complete descriptions of the coding system and statistical analyses can be found in Evans (1979).

Results and Discussion A fundamental difference that emerged was

that teacher-led group activity occupied relatively little of the school day in the language- oriented (LO) classrooms but was the major instructional format in the routinized-performance (RP) classrooms, F (1,18) = 15.39, p < .001. An average of 36% of the children's activities in LO classrooms occurred in the teacher-led learning context, and in two of the classes less than 20% involved the teacher directly leading a group of more than two students. Rather, in all but one of the LO classrooms, children were engaged for more than half of the day in independent activities in which they worked or played quietly by themselves, with other children, or on a one-to-one basis with the teacher. As might be expected, child-to-child interaction was common during independent activities in these classrooms. In contrast, children in the RP classrooms spent an average of 57% of their daily activities in teacher-led group work. In no RP classroom did group work account for less than one third of the day and in four it accounted for more than two thirds.

When specific categories of reading and language activity were examined, differences emerged between the two curricula in both the quantity and the nature of the activities. Table 1 shows the percentage of activities within group




and independent contexts respectively given to (a) sight word recognition practice; (b) word analysis or phonetic decoding; (c) comprehension practice, which includes overall understanding of text and the predictive use of context to support word recognition (e.g., summarizing gist, drawing inferences, predicting appropriate words as in a cloze task, and guessing the meaning of a new word from the way it is used in a sentence); (d) printing, which usually involved copying numbers, letters, words, or sentences; (e) oral reading of text; (f) silent reading of text; (g) oral language arts in which the teacher directed children's discussion and encouraged verbal expression; and (h) story writing, which included both the dictation and printing of student-produced stories. Oral language arts was almost exclusively a group activity, and story writing an independent activity. Activities dealing with other subjects (e.g., music, mathematics, fine motor development) were also observed but are not included in this table. Hence the percentages for each learning context

do not total 100 %. For the activities of sight word recognition,

language arts, and story writing, no significant differences were found between the two sets of classes. However, significantly greater emphases were placed in the RP classrooms than in the LO classrooms on word analysis, independent activities involving printing, and independent activities involving silent reading. Across the whole day the RP classrooms also tended to emphasize contextual meaning more, F (1, 18) =

4.16, p < .056. When the materials employed in each setting were taken into account, some additional differences emerged. RP classrooms employed more activities in which the children looked at display materials such as the black- board, picture cards, and experience charts. Students in LO classrooms spent more time orally reading the stories that they had dictated or written themselves and tended to spend more time on independent activities using their personal sight word banks as opposed to vocabulary determined by basal text.

Table 1 Percentage of teacher-led group and independent work contexts devoted to various reading/language activities

Activity Work Context Routinized Performance Language Oriented M SD M SD

Sight Word Practice Group 5.33 (3.15) 8.37 (9.32) Independent 6.31 (4.47) 5.61 (4.01)

Word Analysis Group 13.38 (6.69) 5.37 (5.12) Independent 11.94 (7.74) 1.84 (1.54)

Comprehension and Context Use Group** 7.63 (4.21) 6.33 (6.42) Independent*** 2.23 (2.32) 1.03 (2.18)

Printing Group 2.79 (3.42) 3.33 (4.73) Independent* 12.94 (6.14) 7.55 (4.91)

Oral Reading of Text Group 4.32 (2.59) 7.42 (8.38) Independent*** 0.92 (1.14) 4.04 (1.77)

Silent Reading of Text Group 6.72 (4.69) 6.91 (8.39) Independent** 7.89 (3.45) 2.97 (4.14)

Oral Language Arts Group 19.03 (8.46) 21.66 (17.69)

Story Writing Independent 1.66 (1.90) 3.29 (2.61)

"*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.




Summary of Curricular Differences in Learning Conditions

The observational data showed that the LO classrooms were different from the RP classrooms with regard to the activities in which children engaged. The LO classrooms appeared as a group to be more informal and play-based in terms of the types of materials and activities offered to the children. Greater opportunity for personal responsibility and self-direction was provided by the large part of the day spent in independent work. Individualization of instruction was provided by the considerable amount of one-to-one teaching and the variety of materials and activities that could be chosen, and a focus on language usage was provided by the encouragement of interaction among children and the employment of pupil-generated stories and sight word banks in beginning reading instruction. On the basis of the defining characteristics noted by Myers and Duke (1977), Walberg and Thomas (1974), Resnick (1972), and Brandt (1972), these classrooms could be called open or student centered, attempting to capitalize on the interests of the children to achieve academic progress via self-motivated learning activity. All observers agreed the LO classrooms impressed them as flexible, open, busy environments with children moving about, spontaneously grouping and regrouping at different work and play centers.

The RP classrooms proved to be more for- mally organized and teacher directed, impress- ing all observers as structured, controlled, and quiet environments. Children in the RP classrooms were usually engaged in some type of group activity orchestrated by the teacher or else were working quietly at one of a relatively restricted range of individual activities. Instead of having an opportunity to explore and interact in a variety of activity centers during independent work, children in these classrooms were more often at their desks engaged in some sort of paper-and-pencil extension of a group activity assigned by the teacher. Reading instruction, which usually occurred in small groups under the teacher's direct supervision, appeared to

emphasize phonics, a skill that was further emphasized in independent activities.

Phase 2: Criterion Performance, Basic Abilities, and Their Interrelationship

Because the evidence shows that two rather different sets of learning conditions existed, we can now proceed to ask whether one produces any better learning outcomes than the other according to objective criteria. Choosing the criterion performances to be tested can be controversial as demonstrated, for example, by the kinds of objections raised against the national Follow-Through Evaluation (Bock, Steb- bins, & Proper, 1977). One of the largest objections was that the measures used in that study did not adequately reflect the outcome goals of the various models of instruction being evaluated (House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978). Hence one should attempt to tap as many of the potential strengths of the curricula examined as possible. In addition, as we have argued, one should determine the levels of relevant basic abilities that are exhibited by the children being tested on the outcome skill(s) and the interactionships between these basic abilities and the instructed skill(s). As Vy- gotsky (1926/1962), Feuerstein (1980), Siegler (1978), Coltheart (1979), and Lazar and Darlington (1982) have all shown in various ways, instruction favors a prepared mind. This means that the benefits to be gained from instruction may vary markedly with the qualifications of the student.

Finally, we have argued that a goal of instruction should be to facilitate a match between new learning and already existing knowledge and skill. Our position is that one should look for two kinds of evidence in order to conclude that an effective match has been made: First, that the learning conditions produce a generally high level of competence at the criterion task (which we will call the mean achievement criterion), and second, that the learning conditions result in a sensible pattern of positive correla-




tions between relevant basic abilities and instructed skill (which we call the cognitive coherence criterion).

Method Measures of basic abilities and criterion

performance. Measurements were taken in five different areas of development potentially related to the activities of the two classroom curricula- information processing, linguistic maturity, social skill, reading achievement, and mathematics achievement. The measures in the first three areas provided evidence regarding the basic abilities of the students, and those in the last two areas addressed criterion performance in instructed skills. The 12 measures employed are described below.

1. Information-Processing Ability: A design reproduction test (Cash, 1976) requiring visual analysis, visual-motor integration, and short-term memory was given. In this test each of a series of increasingly complex geometric designs was viewed for 5 seconds and then drawn from memory. Second, Raven's Col- oured Progressive Matrices (1956), a test requiring visual analysis and nonverbal reasoning and highly correlated with general intelligence, was used. Third, a measure of Piagetian classification operations was obtained using techniques described by Kofsky (1966). In this test the child is required to manipulate colored shapes varying according to their superordinate categories. The drawing of designs from memory and Coloured Progressive Matrices were group administered, and the classification test was given individually.

2. Linguistic Maturity: Three measures derived from the child's spontaneous oral language during an interview with an adult were used, each focusing on an aspect of discourse/ language competence. Each child interviewed was asked to explain a familiar game, to inter- pret a picture displaying a story, and to tell a narrative using a set of toy figurines including houses, cars, and passengers that could ride in them. For each of these three topics a rating from 1 to 5 was given (see Appendix) and these

ratings summed to provide an overall index of the quality of the child's expression. Using these same speech samples, mean length of utterance was calculated according to Shatz and Gelman's (1973) procedure, as well as a developmental syntax score (DSS) following Lee and Canter (1971). The DSS is derived by awarding in- creasing points to the correct use of increasingly complex morphological units and averaging the scores awarded to each utterance. All of the verbal measures were based on written transcriptions of the audio-taped interviews and were reliable beyond r = .89 according to a sample scored by a second rater.

3. Social Skill: A social role-taking task was borrowed from Flavell, Botkin, Fry, Wright, and Jarvis (1968). In this task the child is required to step outside his own perspective and narrate a picture series from the viewpoint of a naive observer. Second, a rough measure of social spontaneity and verbal fluency was obtained by counting the total number of words the child spoke in telling a story, explaining games, and describing pictures. No judgments of the quality of speech figured in this calcula- tion, only the amount of it.

4. Reading Achievement: Here we obtained a measure of comprehension and predictive context use through the group-administered multiple-choice cloze task of the Stanford Achievement Test, Primary Level I (Madden, Gardner, Rudman, Karlsen, & Merwin, 1973). This test requires the child to read short para- graphs missing a content word and to choose the missing word from printed alternatives. An- other measure of comprehension using an individually administered informal reading inventory was also obtained. In the inventory each child proceeded as far as possible through a graded series of short passages (Primer, Grade 1, and Grade 2), in which each passage was read silently or orally as the child wished and followed by fact, inference, and vocabulary questions asked by the examiner, and answered orally. If a child answered more than 75 % of a passage's questions correctly, he or she proceeded to the next passage. If the child answered less than 75% correctly, the inventory




was concluded. Thus the Stanford cloze task emphasized evaluation of an incomplete text and prediction from it, whereas the inventory emphasized a combination of integrative comprehension and memory for complete text.

5. Mathematics Achievement: Two group- administered subtests of the Stanford Achieve- ment Test, Primary Level I (Madden et al., 1973) were employed to measure mathematics achievement: the Mathematics Concepts subtest dealing with number concepts, and the Mathe- matics Computations and Applications subtest dealing with number skills. These tests will be discussed only briefly as they are not central to our arguments concerning reading.

Data collection. For several practical rea- sons, including a priority for establishing whether the two curricula's learning conditions differed in measurable ways before ability and

outcome testing was carried out, and a reluc- tance on the part of the school system to con- duct classroom testing at the beginning of first grade, a posttest-only design was necessary. Thus, all student assessment was carried out in the last month of the school year. It was impos- sible to assign students randomly to classrooms, but the two groups of classes were matched on grade composition and socioeconomic neighborhood and we have no reason to believe that prerequisite reading readiness skills were different in the two groups at the beginning of instruction. Comparisons between curricula were done primarily on the basis of class means rather than individual pupil scores, because matching between curricula was done on the basis of class rather than individual characteristics, and each class mean would be a considerably more reliable measure than an in-

Table 2A Basic abilities of students in the two sets of learning conditions: Social skill, information processing, and language

Measure Score Routinized Performance Language Oriented

Social Role Taking Mean 2.94 2.98 Stand. Dev. 0.91 0.82

Range 1 - 4 1 -4

Verbal Fluency M 295.6 301.3 SD 35.6 45.7 R 260.5 - 353.3 246.9 - 336.3

Designs from Memory M 92.48 95.24 SD 3.84 3.66 R 89.57 - 98.64 89.40 - 98.86

Progressive Matrices M 19.64 19.51 SD 1.49 1.97 R 17.38 - 21.13 16.50- 22.88

Classification M 13.52 13.97 SD 0.53 1.08 R 12.75 - 14.22 12.40- 15.63

Mean Length of Utterance M 5.84 5.74 SD 0.53 0.78 R 5.04 - 6.46 4.97 - 6.75

Developmental Syntax Score M 8.45 8.24 SD 0.68 0.79 R 7.61 -9.34 7.30-9.29

Expressive Language* M 13.83 12.59 SD 2.44 1.76 R 11.17 - 17.75 9.75 -14.30

"*p < .05 on the difference between curricula.




Table 2B Criterion performances of students in the two sets of learning conditions: Reading and mathematic achievement

Measure Score Routinized Performance Language Oriented

Stanford Cloze** Mean 27.42 23.48 Stand. Dev. 3.61 6.72

Range 22.75 - 32.00 10.73 - 29.81

Primer Passage* M 67.37 59.10 SD 9.72 11.97 R 56.00 - 82.50 37.50 - 71.45

Grade 1 Passage M 55.38 48.99 SD 5.07 10.02 R 48.64 - 62.50 34.75 - 64.13

Grade 2 Passage M 39.08 37.09 SD 6.94 9.68 R 22.50 - 46.50 23.13 - 47.00

All Three Passages M 49.74 46.74 SD 3.45 8.74 R 43.70 - 54.83 30.63 - 57.25

Math Concepts*** M 20.26 18.36 SD 1.69 1.76 R 18.57 - 23.33 16.31 - 21.29

Math Computations* M 21.91 20.36 SD 1.97 4.16 R 19.71 - 24.11 14.47 - 25.78

"*p< .05 for the difference between curricula. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

dividual pupil score. Group tests were administered to all children, and individual tests to a random sample of at least 8 children per class. Any child who was identified by the teacher prior to testing as still being at a reading readiness level was exempted from all examination. About 12% of the students fell into this category, and the rate of exemption was about the same for the two curricula.

Results and Discussion Level of performance. Table 2 displays the

group means, the standard deviations, and the range of individual classroom means for each of the measures. No significant differences between curricula were found in the various measures of social skill or information-processing ability. The means, standard deviations, and ab- solute ranges of scores for the two groups were similar on all five measures in these areas of development. We would like to call attention at

this point to the measures of information-processing ability, which include basic skills that previous studies have shown to be empirically related to reading achievement. Verbal and nonverbal IQ scores have been shown to correlate positively with individual differences in reading scores (e.g., Wanat, 1974). More specifically, Singer and Crouse (1981) have found that performance on the Progressive Matrices correlates as highly as +.41 with performance on the Gates-MacGinitie comprehension test, at least among fifth-grade children. Though IQ appears to be less important as a predictor of reading achievement in Grade 1 than it is in Grade 5 (Calfee, Venezky, & Chapman, 1969), the simi- larity of the two curriculum groups on the Pro- gressive Matrices does rule out a potential confound of reasoning ability or problem-solv- ing aptitude as an explanation for effects of learning conditions on reading performance. In the same way, short-term memory, especially for ordered information, correlates positively




with reading proficiency in a number of studies (for reviews see Carr, 1981; Jorm, 1979; Per- fetti & Lesgold, 1978; Singer, 1979). Thus the similar group scores on the drawing-designs- from-memory test rule out another potential confound. Some aspects of perceptual discrimination and visual analysis may also be correlated with reading achievement (Carr, 1981; Mason, 1980; O'Neill & Stanley, 1976; Singer, 1979; Stanley & Hall, 1973). Because both the Progressive Matrices and the drawing-designs- from-memory test depend in part upon careful and efficient perceptual discrimination and visual analysis, we feel that performance on these two tests provides an indication (though not an assurance) that reading-relevant perceptual skills as well as reasoning abilities and short- term memory capabilities were similarly dis- tributed in the RP and LO curriculum groups.

With respect to language competence, length and syntactic complexity of the children's utterances were unrelated to curriculum, and surprisingly the quality of expressive language was actually a little higher in the RP than in the LO classrooms. Notwithstanding the avowed importance of language use and language-based social interaction in the student-centered curriculum, children in these classrooms did not seem to be linguistically more advanced. Neither were they significantly less advanced, ruling out another possible confound between student qualifications and learning conditions.

Turning to the criterion-performance tests, significant differences between curricula emerged in tests of both reading and mathematics achievement, despite the equivalence that was found in social and cognitive abilities and the near equivalence in linguistic abilities. As shown in Figure 1, the RP group was superior to the LO group on the Stanford cloze task, in answering questions about the primer passage, and on the tests of number concepts and number skills. On these same four measures the LO group displayed much greater variability in performance from classroom to classroom, with two or three classes scoring substantially lower than any of those in the RP group. In contrast, no difference between curricula was found in answering questions about the Grade 1 and

Grade 2 passages. This may be attributed to the fact that only the better readers, who did well in comprehending the primer passage, were asked to attempt the more difficult passages. Less than one third of the children in the RP curriculum (31.9%) misunderstood the primer-level passage (failed to earn at least 75 % of the possible points on that passage) while almost half of the LO children (47.6%) found this passage beyond their ability. In contrast, when one re- stricts attention to those children who had attained at least first-grade-level competence, one finds similar percentages in the two curricula: 40.8% in the RP classes and 36.4% in the LO classes. The major difference in reading achievement between the two curricular organi- zations, then, lay in the number of children who had failed to gain even those basic reading skills sufficient to raise them to the level of understanding simple primer text.

Coherence and dissociation among intellectual performances. From these results it would appear that, on the average, classrooms in which children engaged in more teacher-organized and directed skill building activities promoted greater reading achievement (and mathematics achievement as well). Thus by the mean achievement criterion, the routinized-performance approach appears to be superior to the language-oriented approach: It raised students as a group to a generally higher level of competence. In order to address the cognitive coherence criterion, we must turn to the intercorrelations among the measures of information processing, language, and reading achievement. When the class means on these tests were correlated, greater coherence among performances was revealed for the RP than for the LO classes. Table 3 reports the total number of correlations in the entire matrix that were at or above +.39 (significant at the .05 level), between +.39 and -.39, and at or below -.39 for the two curricula. More strong positive correlations and fewer strong negative correlations were found in the RP group, and this difference was highly significant, X2(2, N = 132) =

16.36, p< .001. As might be expected, the mean correlation among all intellectual tests was larger in the RP classrooms (+.39 vs.




Figure 1 Range of classroom means for criterion performance measures

100 RP = Routinized Performance Classrooms LO = Language-Oriented Classrooms

90

80 70 RP RP T RP

RP

% of LO RP LO Maximum 50 Possible LO- - Score 40 RP

LO-- 30

20

10

0

Stanford Primer 1st Grade 2nd Grade Stanford Stanford Cloze Task Passage Passage Passage # Concepts # Skills

READING MATHEMATICS

+.18) as well, and this difference was also sta- tistically significant, t(65) = 2.89, p < .05. Three factors, then, lead to the conclusion that the RP classes as a group were more consistent in focusing on and fostering cognitive skills than the LO classes as a group: (a) the higher mean reading (and mathematics) scores of the RP classes; (b) the smaller variation about these means, and especially the smaller number of very low scores, among the RP classes; and (c) the greater tendency for different cognitive abilities and skills to vary together rather than independently among the RP classes.

To gain a more detailed picture, we will now examine the intercorrelations, using classroom means, between basic information-pro-

cessing abilities, language abilities, and reading achievement for the two sets of learning conditions, both together and separately. Collapsed across type of classroom, the information-processing measures were all positively related to one another and to both reading scores. This was true within each curriculum group as well (see Table 4), but five of the six correlations between information processing and reading were higher among the RP classrooms than among the LO classrooms. These differences ranged from .12 to .51. Thus the teacher-directed approach seems to have provided learning conditions under which information-processing capabilities of the class were more likely to be reflected in reading progress. Furthermore, the




Table 3 Magnitude distributions of 66 correlations among 12 cognitive outcome measures for the two curricula

r> +.39 +.39> r> -.39 r< -.39 (p< .05) (ns) (p< .05)

Routinized Performance 43 22 1

Language Oriented 23 31 12

Table 4 Patterns of interdependence: Information processing and reading

Designs from Memory Progressive Matrices

RP LO DIFE RP LO DIFF

Designs from Memory - - -

Progressive Matrices .55 .34 .21 - - -

Classification .43 .07 .36 .88 .31 .57

Cloze Passage Comprehension

RP LO DIFF RP LO DIFE

Designs from Memory .84 .34 .50 .85 .34 .51

Progressive Matrices .52 .35 .17 .54 .31 .23

Classification .45 .50 .05 .58 .46 .12

Note. RP = Routinized Performance; LO = Language Oriented.

information-processing measures were more strongly related to one another as well as to reading scores in the RP classrooms. This suggests that information-processing skills could possibly interact and reinforce one another to a greater degree under the routinized-performance conditions.

Different results occurred with the language measures. Collapsed across type of classroom, none of the language measures correlated significantly with either reading score. This surprising outcome, howerer, was an artifact of an even more surprising difference between the two classroom groups (see Table 5). Four of the six language-reading correlations were higher among the RP classrooms, and in this case the differences were very large, ranging from .80 to 1.09. All four of these correlations, relating

mean length of utterance and the developmental syntax score to the cloze and comprehension test scores, were positive among the RP classrooms but significantly negative among the LO classrooms.

How can these findings be understood? Three reasonable explanations have occurred to us. One is simple and straightforward: The language-oriented learning conditions may have emphasized oral language development at the expense of other skills. If classroom time devoted to oral language facilitates the language abilities we measured, then high language competence would tend to be associated with low reading competence and vice versa. This explanation is probably wrong, or at least incomplete. First, it would leave unexplained the positive relations observed in the teacher-di-




Table 5 Patterns of interdependence: Language and reading

MLU Syntax Score

RP LO DIFF. RP LO DIFF.

Mean Length of Utterance - - -

Developmental Syntax Score .42 .78 .36 - - -

Expressive Language Rating .94 -.79 1.73 .63 -.67 1.30

Cloze Passage Comprehension

RP LO DIFF RP LO DIFF.

Mean Length of Utterance .48 -.41 .89 .61 -.48 1.09

Developmental Syntax Score .16 -.64 .80 .13 -.72 .85

Expressive Language Rating .00 .24 .24 .17 .25 .08

Note. RP = Routinized Performance; LO = Language Oriented.

rected classrooms. Second, while time devoted to activities classified as oral language arts did correlate negatively with reading performance (as will be reported later in Table 6), it did not correlate in any consistent way with the measures of language ability within the LO classrooms.

A second possibility is that the LO classrooms in which oral language skills were poorer tended to emphasize reading to a greater extent, perhaps accepting the student's language level but actively teaching reading to shore up the oral language weaknesses. Where language skills were perceived as high, LO teachers may have somehow felt that less basic reading instruction was needed. The negative correlations between oral language arts and reading performance support this interpretation as much as they do the first one. But both of these possibili- ties-and especially the second-are unsettling given the lower reading skills of the LO classes and the sheer magnitude of the negative correlations between language skill and reading skill.

Another possibility: The "print-specific skills" hypothesis. A final possible explanation is more complicated, but it has the virtue of ty- ing together the very different patterns of language-reading correlations found under the two sets of learning conditions. Several investiga-

tors (e.g., Biemiller, 1970; Gleitman & Rozin, 1977; Rozin & Gleitman, 1977; Stanovich, 1980) have argued that children must develop a set of information-processing skills which are specific to written language in order to read, that these skills are hard to learn without systematic instruction and corrective feedback, and that competence at spoken language cannot ex- ert its full positive influence on reading progress until print-specific skills are mastered. In other words, spoken language skills will be an asset in learning to read only if one also has the skills to extract efficiently the graphemic, phonological, and semantic information that is carried by the print. Put simply, while encoding mechanisms for dealing with language by ear are well established when reading instruction begins, the encoding mechanisms for dealing with language by eye are not. A major holdup in learning to read involves establishing sight word recognition and spelling-to-sound translation skills, as well as integrating or coordinating these new encoding mechanisms with the already-existing language comprehension system. The more fully one has developed these print-specific encoding mechanisms, the better will be the stimulus data supplied to language comprehension processes, and the more accurate will be the understanding of the text that is




constructed from those data. Thus, in the RP curriculum, with its emphasis on print-specific skills and their use in context, reading comprehension and language ability are positively related.

Better general language skills, however, are more facile with any kind of data, not just complete and accurate data. If print-specific encoding mechanisms send incomplete or erroneous data to the language comprehension processes, what could result but an incomplete or erroneous understanding of the text? In addition, the more powerful the language skills that are applied to the erroneous data, the greater the chance that a seemingly acceptable interpretation can be constructed. Thus when sight vocabulary fails and a printed word cannot be immediately identified for what it is, those beginning readers with strong language abilities but weak print-specific skills may fare quite badly. Their powerful language machinery can take the skimpiest shreds of data and weave them into the fabric of a sensible interpretation. An informal observation made during the test supports this hypothesis. Many of the LO children who could hardly cope with the primer passage in any objective sense merrily made up answers to the comprehension questions and asked the tester to move on to more difficult stories, even though they had in fact failed to understand the easiest of the passages. Thus, strong general language skills may allow readers with poor encoding skills to plunge ahead, greatly overstepping the bounds of their data collection or encoding abilities in constructing a theory of what the text might mean.

Dependence on context to make up for inefficient encoding has already been established as a characteristic of beginning readers (for a review, see Stanovich, 1980). For example Biemiller (1970), in observing reading errors across Grade 1, noted that over 70% of all response errors of beginning readers were seman- tically consistent with preceding, correctly read text, but bore little visual or phonological re- semblance to the actual printed word that should have been produced. These errors occur from the beginning of reading experience and indicate that general language skills transfer im-

mediately to reading, and can override the bottom-up perceptual encoding mechanisms when those mechanisms have trouble. Readers of somewhat greater experience and expertise appear to go through a second period in which the opposite error becomes common: That is, graphemic substitutions are more frequently made while contextual substitutions decline. This in- creased preservation of visual and phonological characteristics of print at the expense of meaning indicates that readers have begun to master print-specific encoding skills but have not yet fully integrated them into the language comprehension system. When difficulty with word recognition arises, they can attend either to the contextual cues or to the perceptual cues, but not to both at once. Further mastery and integration of the encoding mechanisms result in a third phase in which the errors made most frequently preserve both aspects of the context and aspects of the physical data. They rise in relative frequency as the components of the reading system are drawn together and then decrease as further experience strengthens and automates the system so that few errors of any sort are made.

Our results suggest that the rate at which children progress through these phases depends upon an interaction between basic abilities and learning conditions. Children in the LO classrooms, who were reading self-generated and therefore familiar text based on their own language, may successfully rely on contextual cues and memory. Thus they may be spared much of the need to develop highly efficient print-specific skills. Under learning conditions that already place little stress on these skills, the result may well be that such skills do not develop, re- tarding reading competence and allowing a counterintuitive negative relationship between language skills and reading achievement to emerge.

Print-specific skills and classroom activities. An attempt can be made to test this notion by looking for relationships between classroom activities and the development or deployment of print-specific skills. Table 6 has been constructed to examine the pattern of correlations between reading and reading-related activities




carried out in the teacher-led group and independent work contexts as well as performance on reading measures representing different de- grees of difficulty. The primer passage represents the simplest text and was attempted by all students, whereas the Grade 2 passage represents the most difficult and was attempted by only the best readers in each curriculum. In contrast, the Stanford Reading Test and the total score from the primer, Grade 1, and Grade 2 passages added together (designated in Table 6 as "All 3") represent a wide range of texts from the simplest to most difficult.

As can be seen in the table, higher scores on the more difficult reading materials of the Grade 2 passages were positively correlated with guided silent reading, activities focusing on comprehension and the use of context to make predictions, and printing activities. Higher scores on the simple primer text, on the other hand, were associated with word analysis

activities in addition to silent reading and printing. The positive relation between word analysis and primer passage scores was observed in both the RP classrooms which stressed word analysis and in the LO classrooms which de- emphasized its importance. This suggests that in general the children who successfully read the primer passage did so in part on the basis of the word analysis skills that were taught to them. However, a dissociation occurred between curricula with respect to the relation between primer scores and activities stressing comprehension and prediction from context. This relation was positive in the RP classrooms but slightly though not significantly negative in the LO classrooms. We would argue that a focus on predictive context utilization "worked" in the RP classrooms because it was combined with print-specific skills taught through word analysis activities, but did not work in the LO classrooms because the children had few re-

Table 6 Correlations between reading and reading-related curricular activities and performance on various measures of reading skill

All Classrooms Routinized Language Combined Performance Oriented

I .17 .16 .08 .23 -.19 -.19 -.36 -.16 .21 .22 .04 .44

Oral Reading G .09 .05 .06 .21 -.29 -.24 -.08 -.25 .25 .22 .06 .42 I -.14 -.19 -.17 -.20 - - - .25 .13 .36 .00

Sighlent Wording G -.04 .08 .16 -.08 .6432 .01 -.38 .13 .08 -.32 .49 .537 I .1739 -.42 .09 .243 -.63 -.19 -.30 63 -. -.16 .21 .69 .06 -.46

I -.14 -.19 -.17 -.20 - - - - .25 .13 .36 .00

Word Analysis G .14 .18 .43 .18 .04 .04 .31 -.02 -.02 .12 .31 .03 I .23 .11 .39 .11 .31 -.05 .41 -.20 - - -

Comprehension G .28 .21 .08 .21 .15 .31 .35 .31 .31 .12 -.15 .28 & Context Use I - - - - - - - - - - - -

Printing G - - - - - - - - - -

I .43 .34 .48 .24 .75 .37 .44 .29 .12 .20 .34 .12 ' Oral Language G -.57 -.41 -.39 -.41 .12 .07 .28 .07 -.80 -.62 -.70 -.45

Note. - Indicates variables for which more than half of the classes in that group utilized the activity < 2% of the time and M = < 4%. G = Teacher-led group context: I = Independent context.




sources for dealing with unfamiliar words. This interpretation is further supported in

that sight word recognition practice in the teacher-led group context correlated positively with primer reading performance in the LO classrooms but not in the RP classrooms, and not with the more difficult reading materials in either of the two groups of classrooms. The great emphasis on teacher-directed sight word practice in some LO classrooms (see Table 1, which shows that the mean amount of sight word practice was 8.37 % with a standard devia- tion of 9.32 %) maximized the likelihood of en- countering familiar words on the primer passage but was of little help on the more advanced texts and was not integrated with other reading skills. Hence, while it may be possible with enough practice to acquire enough stored pronunciations and meanings for particular print configurations to deal with text for which one has been drilled (whether primer level or self-generated text), this strategy breaks down when unfamiliar configurations are encountered (see Baron & Strawson, 1976; Carr, Davidson, & Hawkins, 1978). The breakdown of this strategy, when it is the only means of word recognition available, renders listening vocabulary, syntactical understanding, appreciation of context, and other language-based skills relatively useless. As Perfetti, Goldman, & Hogaboam (1979) point out, decoding can possibly stand on its own, but beneficial use of context depends critically on decoding.

A second component of the print-specific skills hypothesis is the importance of systematic instruction and corrective feedback. While we have no direct data about teacher behavior, the role of direct supervision may be assessed to some extent by contrasting correlations with achievement between activities occurring under the teacher's direction and those independently carried out by pupils. In Table 6 it can be seen that in both sets of classrooms, reading achievement was positively correlated with teacher-led group silent reading while generally uncorrela- ted with independent silent reading. In the LO classrooms, performance on the primer passage also correlated positively with one-to-one oral reading with the teacher during independent

work. Independent sight word practice was almost uniformly negatively correlated with reading achievement in both curricula.

We propose that the problem with these independent activities was that teachers had little control over critical factors such as what words were practiced, how they were attended to or re- hearsed, whether the texts that were read silently were read accurately and with comprehension, or at what pace the children proceeded. Given the relatively inefficient learning strategies, mnemonic behavior, and monitoring of comprehension documented in young children (e.g., Flavell, Beach, & Chinsky, 1966; Flavell & Wellman, 1977; Markman, 1979; Ornstein, Naus, & Liberty, 1975), well-intentioned independent activities may be at risk for degenerating into almost random learning which may detract from or inter- fere with more systematic practice of reading skills. Indeed, the correlations in the top portion of Table 6 suggest that at best, completely independent activities will fail to hurt the early development of reading skills. Because the only two positive correlations with reading achievement to emerge from these independent reading activities involve oral reading in the LO group (where the reading was usually done to the teacher) and word analysis in the RP group (where the students usually followed the structured exercises of phonics books), the importance of structure and feedback is further underlined.

A final note: The special role ofprinting. A major exception to the above generalization about the ineffectiveness of independent activities in fostering beginning reading can be found in the bottom portion of Table 6. This exception comes from the activities that involve printing. In both groups of classrooms, a positive relation was observed between time spent printing and reading achievement. We believe that printing activities afford added insight into the structure of spelling-to-sound correspondences and therefore serve to reinforce word analysis practice. Vygotsky (1926/1962) was one of the first in- vestigators to analyze what is involved in writing, arguing that the child "must take cognizance of the sound structure of each word,




dissect it, and reproduce it in alphabetical sym- bols which he must have studied and memo- rized before. In the same deliberate way he must put words in a certain sequence to form a sentence" (pp. 98-99). A more modern version of Vygotsky's argument for the importance of bringing sound structure and phonetic analysis into conscious awareness has been made by Ro- zin (1976) and applied in detail to early reading acquisition by Rozin and Gleitman (1977; Gleitman & Rozin, 1977). Available data seem to bear these arguments out. Phonemic awareness or the ability to manipulate and make judgments about component sounds of words smaller than the syllable, correlates highly with reading achievement in the first four grades of school, and training programs that foster phonemic awareness appear to have had some suc- cess at speeding overall reading development (Gibson & Levin, 1975; Golinkoff, 1978; Treiman, 1983; Treiman & Baron, 1981).

Summary and Implications

People who are concerned that children get off to a fast start in learning to read may con- sider what we have reported here to be a damn- ing criticism of the type of language-oriented curriculum that we studied. We do not intend to hand down any such general indictment; in fact, as explained in more detail elsewhere (Carr & Evans, 1981), we believe that with some modifications, the informal language-oriented curriculum could foster reading development just as well or better than the routinized-performance curriculum without sacrificing the virtues of play-based education. Let us make clear, then, what we think these data mean.

Put in the simplest possible terms, reading instruction seems to vary along two dimensions in the curricula we have compared. One dimension involves reading style and represents the extent to which a classroom teaches beginning reading as a rule-governed translation task via phonics or as a paired-associate verbal learning task via look-say techniques. The RP classrooms fall toward the phonics end of the contin-

uum, and the LO classrooms fall toward the look-say end. In this regard our findings are much like those of Chall (1979, 1983) in show- ing that on the average, instruction that is oriented toward phonics produces more rapid or substantial early achievement than instruction that is oriented toward look-say. We believe that this result follows from the role that word analysis plays as a vocabulary builder for the reading process (Carr, Davidson, & Hawkins, 1978; Singer & Crouse, 1981). Skilled as well as un- skilled readers used paired-associate knowledge or direct visual access routes in recognizing words, so it is not correct to view skilled reading as either phonic based or look-say based. Skilled reading involves a complex interaction between the two styles, with relative dominance of one or the other shifting as a function of the material being read. Readers need to develop both styles, and this is where the language-oriented curriculum as a whole may have fallen short.

The second basic dimension on which the two curricula appear to differ involves the extent to which reading activities are systematically engineered and teacher supervision and corrective feedback are applied in practicing reading skills. The classrooms observed here varied considerably in the extent to which teachers directly guided reading practice, with higher teacher guidance correlating positively with reading achievement. We think that immediate corrective feedback is very important to the efficient acquisition of word recognition techniques, as is generally the case with skilled performances of all kinds, both mental and physical (Adams, 1976; Anderson, 1982; Fitts & Posner, 1967; Keele, 1967; Keele & Neill, 1979; Welford, 1976; Woodworth, 1938). Fur- ther, the literature on dual task performance suggests that the coordination of two sets of mental operations in simultaneous performance is easier the better learned and more automated either set of mental operations has become (Carr, 1979; Logan, 1979). Hence, the more efficiently word analysis techniques are acquired, the faster they will reach the stage of overlearning that appears necessary for word analysis to be successfully coordinated with




processes that utilize contextual constraints to facilitate comprehension (Biemiller, 1970; Bryan & Harter, 1899; Perfetti & Lesgold, 1978; Stanovich, West, & Feeman, 1981). Fi- nally, coordination of simultaneous mental operations may itself be a skill that improves with practice (Hirst, Spelke, Reaves, Caharach, & Neisser, 1980; Spelke, Hirst, & Neisser, 1976). Hence, with corrective feedback at this higher stage, both sets of mental operations can be consolidated and coordinated in simultaneous performance, making directed exercise of comprehension and context use helpful over and above the benefits to be had from directed word analysis practice. Consistent with this hypothesis, Singer & Crouse (1981) found that cloze performance correlated with reading comprehension even after variance associated with word analysis and vocabulary knowledge had been removed.

Reading, then, is a complex skill that requires a certain amount of direct instruction and supervised practice in order to establish minimum levels of competence in beginners. The components of the skill that seem most to de- mand close, expert training are of two types. The first type consists of components that depend upon opaque linguistic concepts that do not come easily, such as word analysis based on the abstract idea of the phoneme and complicated patterns of spelling-to-sound correspondence that are mediated by this abstraction (Gleitman & Rozin, 1977; Golinkoff, 1978; Treiman, 1983; Treiman & Baron, 1981). The second type consists of components that involve dual task performance requiring that hard-to-learn components like word analysis be coordinated with other potentially attention- demanding activities like predictive context use (Biemiller, 1970; Carr, 1981, 1982; Fre- deriksen, 1978; Larochelle, McClelland, & Rodriguez, 1980; Perfetti & Lesgold, 1978). If minimum levels of competence in these two types of components are not attained, reading cannot become a self-sustaining activity. There- fore, carefully organized direct instruction would seem to be a critical part of beginning reading activity, needed to provide a foundation on which strategically effective knowledge-

driven reading can later be built. Stanovich, West, & Feeman (1981) have ar-

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APPENDIX

Scoring Guide for Rating Quality of Expression

The quality of the child's expression for each of five conversational topics was rated as follows and the three ratings totaled to derive an index of the overall quality of the child's expressive language.

a) Explanation of Show & Tell and Hide 'n' Seek 1-unable to talk about topic 2-limited to personal incident (e.g., "We hide in the closet:") 3-general but limited information about procedures 4-adequate information but confused conditional ideas and temporal order 5-clear, abundant, and relevant information

b) Interpretation of Two Pictures 1-simply enumerates items in picture 2-attributes qualities/action to items 3-infers feelings and relationships between items 4-relates antecedent events and/or probable outcome 5-draws a general conclusion or moral to story

c) Spontaneous Narrative Using Figurine Props 1-unable to tell a story 2-simple statements regarding unrelated events 3-general theme with limited/confusing supporting events 4-definite theme and plot development 5-well-developed narrative with characters introduced, clear plot sequence, feelings inferred, and a resolution of the

events




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Cognitive abilities, conditions of learning, and the early development of reading skill (MARY ANN EVANS & THOMAS H. CARR 1985)